Main menu

Fatherhood: Monsters Inc.

Recent research links marketing and its sidekick, consumerism, to an increased risk for a broad spectrum of ills, including conflicts at school, conflicts with parents, psychological distress, indifference toward others, and a disregard for the world itself. Exposing a child to high levels of marketing, in other words, is a great way to make a child unhappy, unsuccessful, and unlikable. Most of us think of marketing as ads, but with shows having become toys having become brands, the most innocent of stuffed toys is no longer as innocent as it seems….

….”To me, consumerism is the more insidious problem,” says Tim Kasser, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and author of The High Price of Materialism. “It’s less obviously seen. It’s the water in which we swim.” Scientific studies show an association between materialism in children and impairment on a host of markers of children’s physical, social, and psychological well-being. “Children who are high on scales of materialism report being less happy, less satisfied with life, more depressed, and more anxious. They even have lower self-esteem,” he says.